I briefly looked at elance as a means to gauge what "markets" were hot for me to focus on. At the time (and it may still be the case) Wordpress was really taking off. One of the things I noticed from the top paid developer there was that he seldom had to bid on anything. Based purely on his reputation and previous work he was able to land more work then he could probably handle while everyone else was competing with teams out of India who were low balling everything.
I believe what mootothemax is advocating is that getting your foot into the door opens up a lot more possibilities than trying to out bid people who have a lot more experience. Sure $20 may not be much but often people who frequent these sites have much more work to offer and they are more likely to offer it to people they can depend on.
Personally though I have found the best way to land gigs is to network. There are plenty of shops out there that have more work then they can handle and they are always looking for people to help ease the load.
For any western country, $2-3k pre tax is still quite low for a good programmer.
I would argue not to take this route, as many of the clients on these websites are a pain to deal with.
An example from personal experience; when I was in college I wrote a Win32 application that ran in the background and did some stuff. I spent a couple of days on it (including research for some obscure things) and made $100. Flipping burgers would've been more profitable and the experience that I had with that client was all but 'fun'.
There are plenty of clients out there that want to pay good for good programming work.
This is an interesting experience you had and is quite applicable regardless of the money.
Despite the level of income from each job, the OP's approach is very solid. Have an excellent reputation, work closely with your client and build a solid portfolio.
That said, I can't speak for any of the marketplaces for coders because I don't code for money (marketing is my trade) but the essence is the same.
Difficult question, because not all bids are created equal :)
So let's say that you're browsing through bids, and you see a couple for $200-$300 which look like they could be fun, and then another one for $1,500. Obviously you're going to spend a lot more time preparing the bid for the $1,500 project than for the other two. Plus, I only bid on major projects that I personally found interesting, and I think my enthusiasm carried across.
In general, for the major projects, I got pretty much well every one that I bid on; for the minor projects, probably around 25%.
I believe what mootothemax is advocating is that getting your foot into the door opens up a lot more possibilities than trying to out bid people who have a lot more experience. Sure $20 may not be much but often people who frequent these sites have much more work to offer and they are more likely to offer it to people they can depend on.
Personally though I have found the best way to land gigs is to network. There are plenty of shops out there that have more work then they can handle and they are always looking for people to help ease the load.